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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Back to the back

In case you've missed the latest news affecting the world, my back is torn up again. I did a great job on it this time. Had to miss work, use a wheelchair, made it back to work, progressed to a walker, still at work, and now I'm on a cane. Still working despite the agonizing pain and sheer agony. There seems to be an unfortunate theme in this.

The theme is that work is bad. No, wait, that's not the theme. That's the refrain. The theme is that we need to take care of our backs so that they will allow us to continue to work at our soul-crushing jobs. Yes, that's the theme. Now let's all hum it.

The most important thing we can do for our backs is to lose weight. Didn't see that coming, did ya? You were just reading along and then suddenly the dreaded weight loss is in your face. Ha! That'll teach you to be so trusting.

Seriously, just one pound of fat on your belly puts 1,754,321 pounds of pressure on your back. You get to be over 50 pounds overweight, and your back is actually having to support the weight of the entire world! Including Australia! I apparently am supporting most of the planets. I'm a mighty man, I am!

So you must lose weight, mustn't you? But enough about you. Let's talk about something interesting, like me.

I have to lose weight and thus have embarked on a diet. It consists of a protein drink for breakfast, a bran and cardboard muffin for a mid-morning snack, a protein drink for lunch, a chewy bran and dirt muffin for an afternoon snack, and then a sensible evening meal, which usually consists of a small dinner salad and a side of beef. Well, not always. Sometimes I skip the salad.

I also take a multi-vitamin and drink as much water as I can drink without sloshing. Woohoo! I'm living the high life!

Of course, I cheat on this. But I try to confine my cheating foods to those that are healthy for me, such as broccoli, carrots, lettuce, Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, roasted chickens and double dips of cherry pecan praline ice cream.

So how's this working out for me? I can hear you asking. I have excellent ears. In fact, many of my body parts have received excellent ratings by the International Council of Body Part Rating.

Slowly. It's going slowly. The big problem seems to be that my activity level has dropped severely due to the limitations imposed by my back. Moving hurts, walking hurts, breathing hurts. I sneezed once at the beginning of this injury, and the pain was so bad that I asked the doctor to shoot me. After I wrestled the gun away from him, I switched doctors.

But my back is getting better slowly. Yesterday I sneezed at lunch, and as I watched the particles of snot fly toward the neighboring table, I thought, "Hey, that didn't hurt much." There's always a bright spot in everything, you know.

So how are you doing? Did you lose any at this Wednesday Weigh In? You might notice that I've taken my weight loss to zero. I consider today a new start and hope to show a loss next week.

I started to post before I went off to do my work this morning, but somehow or other I got a static shock and my computer turned off.

Anyway, I was going to say...

"Remarkably, I am still 8 pounds down from my starting weight. This surprises me, but it shows me that doing the right thing, even for a short time, can result in long-lasting results. Though 8 pounds is a small amount, the fact that I've maintained some of my changes in choices -- certainly not all of them -- is pretty cool."

Maybe the lesson is to make changes diligently for a period of time, then relax for a bit. Make an intentional plateau, if you will, to allow yourself to adjust to the changes. Then after a short time, go back to being more diligent to make another drop.

This isn't the same as "yo-yo" dieting to me. The key is to let the body adjust to the "new normal" before continuing -- not to allow ourselves to regain the weight we've lost.

What I've learned: After several weeks on the DASH diet, I am more inclined to choose whole grains, seeds and nuts and fresh veggies to some of the poor choices I had before. I'm much more aware of the sodium content of foods and make sure I check labels for no sodium versions. I've found that to be a powerful contributor to my problems.